Awakening
by Zero's Wings
Summary: A story of Heero\'s past as a genetic experiment by twisted Alliance scientists. Warning: strong violence and some language
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: I own no part of Gundam Wing or its characters and wrote this story exclusively for the enjoyment of fans. I do not intend to profit from it in any way. 

Note: This is one of many scenarios that attempts to explain the somewhat foggy past of our main man, Heero Yuy. I hope you enjoy it. 

By ZERØ's Wings

Two intense, blue eyes opened slowly. A young boy, perhaps no more than 14, stared perplexed at the swirling world of green around him. 

He was part of the newest line of genetically altered humans known as the 'Hero Youth' models. Suspended by a transparent, plastic umbilicus, he was submerged in a potion of alcohol, formaldehyde, and biological hybrid cells. The boy had awoken in a holding tank at the Alliance Labs on colony Lx-12110502. 

This boy had been born naturally, by mothers living on this and other backwater colonies, but he had been unconscious for ten years, while his body underwent massive physical disruption and augmentation by state-of-the-art artificial bacterium called nanites. 

This lab contained eighteen youths that were unwittingly placed into the Hero projects. Of those only one had already regained consciousness from his long slumber. But he was different from the start. 

This lab was one of the last of its kind, as the Hero Youth models were found to be mentally unstable and difficult to control. The military applications of the physically advanced Hero Models had all been massive failures and funding from the Alliance had dried up completely. The project was easily one of the most expensive and time-consuming blunders in the After Colony years, but the project had been kept secret to the public and most of the military. The few Alliance bureaucrats who authorized it could easily push it under the carpet with the dust mites. 

The lab was busy today, as scientists and technicians were making the final adjustments to each hero youth models cerebellum. It had been found that they took twice as long to adjust to zero gravity in comparison with the average colony citizen. This was a minor problem at this stage in the game, however. 

Skinny, clean-suit enveloped lab engineers hurried busily to each of the consoles, checking the vital signs of each model. The two head techs, Compter and Emulat, were grinning proudly as they surveyed their work. These models had no physical deformities and all of their brain wave patterns were normal. The irradiation of their major brain lobes was complete, and now the young men were constantly being fed combat data. Of course, with no sensory output or higher brain functions, their hungry little minds lapped up the information like buttermilk. 

In the heavily plated tank in the corner was the project's wild card: A skinny, brown-haired youth of no particular nationality. He was completely unique, despite his unremarkable features. This one had his higher brain functions intact and although the centers of his brain for feeling and emotional responses were dormant, they still had the possibility of being awoken under the right circumstances. 

In effect, this model was more human than the others were, but he was still being fed huge doses of military tactics. Although he could grasp the emotions of other people and perhaps eventually become a part of normal society, he would still be the soulless killing machine that the Alliance military desired. The lab technicians had nicknamed him 'Crying Boy' for his capacity to react emotionally. 

Crying Boy was at first indifferent to the men in odd, balloon-like suits that rushed around him. He was about to speak to them; ask them the thousands of questions that had been welling up since his strange rebirth in this green fluid. Just as his lips parted the tiniest bit, he heard a huge, blaring red noise. It was like an axe, a sound splitting his head right down the middle. The command was impossible to ignore. It segmented his brain into rigid sections that contained the basic layout of a combat mission. 

As the young man adjusted to this new receptacle of thought, he found that his current mission objectives were unclear. This was disturbing, no, downright terrifying, to him. One thing was certainly clear, though. These odd men walking around him were not essential to his mission, and were therefore enemies. 

Crying Boy had already mastered the ability to control his own pulse and brain waves. To the busy scientists, his condition seemed to be unchanged. He waited for the crowd to thin somewhat; he was instructed that this mission called for an advantage on a tactical level only; any strategic confrontation was to be avoided until the arrival of additional forces. 

Crying Boy waited for about an hour, controlling the movement of every skin pore and hair follicle, and finally his patience paid off. All of the techs had taken off their sterile suits and left the lab, for coffee and talk about the newest mobile suit technology. This was a side job for many, almost all of the techs who worked on these models were hoping to be bumped up the ladder to work on the MS division of Romafellar. Head technicians Compter and Emulat were the only ones left in the room, and both had opened the hoods of their clean suits to share a pack of cigarettes. 

"Why are we making these 'Hero Youth' models, Compter? I still don't get what the alliance wants with a bunch of starry-eyed teenagers acting as soldiers." 

"The enlistment age was dropped really low in the past couple of years, and the Alliance thinks that there will be less suspicion around some teenage punk crawling out of the woodwork and joining the army. The earlier models were all full-grown men. Sure, they were easier to re-incubate and strengthen, but these guys have been missing in action for decades. I can see how the public wouldn't just swallow the whole idea of men reappearing thirty years later with no memories. 

As soon as Compter finished his lecture, the lights on crying boys console flashed red and alarms began to sound. 

"Oh god!" Compter cried. 

"What is it?" 

"Model 18 is awake," Compter said; he was already accessing crying boy's life support functions. 

"What the hell are you doing?" screamed Emulat. 

"I'm terminating the organism. You may want to stand away from that tank, Emulat. When that thing wakes up it's gonna kill us all!" 

"It won't hurt us, it has its military recognition protocol," Emulat said calmly, unwavering. 

"You idiot! That's Crying Boy! He doesn't have the data implants, only the mental conditioning. He's going to consider us enemies!" Emulat was starting to loose it now, too. The cool exterior melted away like an instant, and all that was left was a squeaking, helpless fool. 

"Compter, you have to shut it down. You have to kill it." 

"What do you think I've been trying to do?" Compter growled angrily. The console was uncooperative, and kept locking up and repeating the evacuation and quarantine warnings. In the intensity of the moment, Emulat and Compter never heard the delicate sound of duraglass cracking, or the sound of green solution dribbling onto the floor. 

Crying Boy saw the two men rushing frantically to shut off the tank's life support. Little did they know, crying boy had already severed his plastic umbilical cord and was pummeling the glass of the tank with his hands and feet. 

At last his wet fist punched right through the side of the tank. The jagged glass cut long, deep gashes in the boy's arm. He felt no pain or displeasure, only a mild sensation to denote injury. 

Minor blood loss. No major veins or arteries punctured. Combat effectiveness decreased by five percent. Crying Boy burst through the side of the tank and landed on the cold tile floor, naked and dripping with the green liquid. The two enemies in front of him made shrill little cries and then he advanced. 

The young man couldn't believe the slow, uncoordinated reaction times of these targets. He descended upon the first target at a crawling pace, and still overtook the man with ease. He punched the scientist in the gut and found that his hand had no difficulty going straight through the man's flesh. 

Who were these weaklings? He thought incredulously. His fist tore right through the technician's chest like a hot knife. The young man let his fist swim around in Compter's chest cavity for a little while, then found purchase around a throbbing object inside the tech's ribcage. It fit perfectly into the palm of his hand, so he extracted it out of curiosity. A blood-soaked cigarette tumbled from Compter's lips and hit the tile floor. Crying Boy looked at the prize in his blood-soaked hand. He dropped the lab technician's warm, slippery heart onto the floor with a bored look. It had just stopped beating as a final aortic vein snapped free. 

Crying Boy found such energy and speed welling up inside him that it seemed to be a crime not to use it, even on pathetic creatures such as these. He rushed across the lab's tiled floor with agility and grace. When he was halfway to his second target, Emulat, he spun his body around and gripped Emulat's head and neck in his muscular arms. Emulat's neck snapped like a twig. It seemed to somehow stain his hands as they were put to such trifling work. 

A few moments later, Crying Boy had dressed himself in Emulat's lab coat and jeans and was pinning the man's blood-spattered ID card to his white undershirt. He didn't bother with the buttons; Compter's side arm had already attracted his attention. It was a crude tool, a semi-automatic snub pistol, but his hands wrapped comfortably around the handle, so he kept it. 

As Crying Boy exited the lab, a red, electronic eye swiveled around in its wall slot to greet the renegade experiment. Crying Boy reached out and grabbed the eye in his fist, but it gave off a huge amount of heat and he thought he detected a slight charring of his flesh. A minor electrical burn, he thought, and then decided to ignore the assessment of it. 

Crying Boy's next stop was the control room. He saw the hanger bay doors at the end of the hall and figured there would be some kind of escape vehicle inside, perhaps a small shuttle. However, to get outside the complex, he would need to open the runway gates, which could be operated from the control room's security computer. 

He only encountered one other target on his way to the control room. This one had a uniform, and his ID proclaimed he was a security guard. This person had a reaction time slightly faster than the scientist did, but he was still a comically slow and clumsy slug to Crying Boy. The guard's hand reached down toward a gun, snug in its holster by the guard's waist. Crying Boy aimed his own pistol and fired with a sense of mundane detachment. He let his fingers do the work alone; the rush of adrenaline hollowed out his mind. He put a round clear through the guard's left eye. 

Crying Boy let the control room doors slide open with his gun ready. He killed four more guards inside and disarmed the fifth with a shot to the kneecap. His bullets ricocheted off walls and blasted apart equipment. Monitor screens exploded into bright sparks and pieces of glass. 

Crying Boy found the one computer that he hadn't put a slug through and used it to open all the exterior gates. Alarms gave their vociferous, wailing calls in the background. 

Within moments, he had already evaded or killed the last of the inner security and made a blind dash for the hangar bay. Unfortunately, an entire platoon of trained soldiers, twice as fast as the sluggish guards and scientists, was waiting for Crying Boy when he entered the huge hangar. 

Crying Boy ignored the savage, barking reports that exploded through the large room and his eardrums. He ran on, regardless of the yellow-white sunbursts of muzzle flare that blinded him. 

At some point, he was no longer aware that he was running. The world had blurred and swirled into a kaleidoscope of unrecognizable images. In this confusion, even Crying Boy's relentlessly commanding military brain was silenced. He was just a confused boy in the middle of a firefight. 

When his military brain returned, the world became shaper, clearer, and bursting with a thousand information-loaded perspectives. It was bewildering at first, but Crying Boy adjusted quickly. 

Now the young man could not only see the spaces between bullets, but also the bullets themselves, screaming through in midair like hawks of solid mercury. 

He took one in the shoulder, but spun blazingly fast, with arms and legs twisted together, meshing together as one, and he could see the other blurry comet tails pass him by. The air behind the bullets was distorted and wavy, like the air above a licking flametongue or the blacktop of a hot, summer road. 

Crying Boy made it to the nearest available transport, a large shuttle designed for atmospheric flight. He jumped inside the cockpit and disposed of the waiting co-pilot. 

Crying Boy watched the huge, mechanical docking arms drag the shuttle down the indoor section of the runway. As soon as the bulky, metal limbs let go, he punched the accelerator and slammed the dual throttles forward. The shuttle hesitated, then lunged forward, gobbling up the runway and lifting its massive girth into the air. 

Crying Boy waited until the shuttle had passed far beyond the perimeter fence of the labs; then shut the world away and fell asleep instantly. 

End Part 1


	2. The Awakening Part 2

Disclaimer: I own no part of Gundam Wing or its characters and wrote this story exclusively for the enjoyment of fans. I do not intend to profit from it in any way.  
  
Note: This is one of many scenarios that attempts to explain the somewhat foggy past of our main man, Heero Yuy. I hope you enjoy it. Please Read and Review!!!  
  
Gundam W Fanfiction  
-The Awakening-  
  
Chapter 2-Reborn once more  
  
The renegade experiment known as Crying Boy slept soundly as his shuttle drifted across the farmlands of colony Lx-12110502. Beneath him, some farmers were herding oxen, sheep, and cows. Others were digging up silt around fields of grain and rice. A few looked up questioningly at the craft passing low overhead, but most were engrossed in there everyday tasks, unaware of the modern technology that had crept into their culture like a thief in the night.  
  
Crying Boy woke suddenly from a vivid dream involving a strange girl. She was pleading for something, and the charred buildings around her seemed to be the ruins of her homeland.  
  
  
The boy's rigid mind pushed away such distractions. His priority right now was the thing that had awoken him in the first place: the fuel light was on and an annoying buzzer was sounding somewhere in the distance. When Crying Boy checked the on board reactor diagnostic, he saw that the shuttle was losing fuel far too quickly. The control rods must have been hit by one of the soldiers in the hangar.  
  
Crying Boy waited until the shuttle had dropped to 300 meters above the colony surface then calmly released the shuttle's canopy and ejected the cockpit section.  
  
The parachutes opened and the ejected cockpit descended toward the river.  
  
Inside, Crying Boy was being thrown about violently in his seat. He could hear whistling air thermals being thrown around the rapidly descending cockpit. A monitor turned on above him, showing the cockpit's descent toward a large river.  
  
Crying Boy knew he would not survive a water landing at the rate this ejected segment was following. The landing parachutes were torn to pieces when the cockpit ejected, he thought. I'm in a terminal free fall.   
  
Crying Boy smashed his fist down on the auxiliary burners. They might cushion the impact enough to let him survive. The commands that swept through his mind, that were becoming fainter by the minute, told him that his chance of survival was slim, but also instructed him to fight, not to panic or loose hope but to employ the burners and hope for the best. For once, Crying Boy was thankful for the cold, calculating force behind his eyes; it gave the confused child within him a sense of focus.  
  
The cockpit's descent was slowed somewhat by the thrusters, but it was still coming down toward the water dangerously fast.  
  
Crying Boy crossed his arms over his chest and braced for impact.  
  
The cockpit blasted down through huge, arching waves and was swallowed in a bubbling froth.  
  
It was not until the cockpit hit the riverbed beneath the surface that Crying Boy felt the force of the impact. It threw him forward so abruptly and with such force that he tore right through his safety harness.   
  
Crying Boy's jaw impacted against the pilot's console and he involuntarily spewed forth a mouthful of blood and a tooth. This time, his mind and his body could feel the pain of the experience. He was slightly alarmed by the fact that he almost enjoyed the sensation.  
  
The cockpit settled down at the bottom of the river and the disrupted waters slowly calmed to their usual, tranquil state.  
  
At last, I am at peace, Crying Boy thought.  
  
The ejected cockpit waded through the dirt and sand of the river bottom for the rest of the day and on through the night. Just as the sun began to rise the next morning, it was swept up by a slanted rock shelf and emerged on the water's surface. A giant's hand reached out into the river and plucked it from the current like a delicate flower petal. The hand was made of metal, and shimmered with red-gold flecks of sunlight.  
  
Wavering rivulets of water spilt between the metal giant's segmented fingers as it lifted the battered cockpit and dropped it onto the grassy field by the river.  
  
A man hobbled up toward the giant, who was kneeling by the field. The man was strange looking. He had severe arthritis in his back, and his spine had forward so much that he almost seemed to be hunchbacked.   
  
The man's eyes had been destroyed in an accident involving a laser cutter. It had been taking in too much power from the colony's main generator grid. He was blinded and his retinas ended up being damaged beyond any repair. Therefore, they were removed and replaced with a pair of goggle-like screens.   
  
The man's arm had also been removed, this time amputated when he had served in the colonies general infantry. He was once part of the group of rebels who launched terrorist attacks on earth, but he knew he had become too old and weak for such foolishness even then. His right arm was now an eerie, spider-like, metal prosthesis.   
  
The strange old man could hardly contain his excitement when he saw the ejected cockpit.  
  
"At last, a visitor!" He cried; then rushed out into the grassy field at a pace he hadn't attempted in years. He felt younger, his weary bones felt lighter and less brittle, and the colors of the world around him seemed more vibrant than ever before.  
This old man was actually a scientist and a mobile suit engineer. His code name was simply 'J,' but he couldn't bear to give up his doctorate title. At the age of two hundred and thirty, he was the oldest of the original mobile suit engineers and his real name was a distant formality. He liked 'J' though; it was simple and easy. He always countered the criticism that it didn't really represent him with a fact that described his entire existence:  
Nothing in this life is perfect.   
  
Dr. J had been sent to this remote colony to help with the engineering of a new breed of soldiers. Just as he had helped bring the idea of the Mobile Suits to the Earth and Colonies, he would take part in introducing a second revolution of warfare to mankind. However, these new projects were a failure, and he had decided to find a remote part of the colony (it was mostly farmland), and try to create some semblance of a normal life after two centuries of chaos.  
  
The weary scientist came to regret his decision though, for he was too social of a creature, being human after all, to live as a hermit. He had only his last creation, the mobile suit called 'Gundam' to keep him company. It was poor company, at the least.   
  
But the capsule that was now only a few feet away shattered all of those lonely times. It was Dr. J's first possible contact with another person in five years.  
  
He reached the cockpit and commanded his Gundam to open it with a small remote. The sealed canopy and metal frame peeled back to reveal a young boy.  
  
The boy was unconscious and looked terrible. Dr. J was impressed by the young man's will to survive even with five gunshot wounds, a broken jaw, and a dislocated shoulder.  
  
"Hello, my friend. You are safe now," Dr. J whispered. "I will tend to your wounds."  
  
The sound of another voice triggered something deep within Crying Boy. He snapped up immediately, leapt out of the cockpit, and was bewildered that the river he had been floating in had transformed into a grassy field. No time for confusion, there is your enemy! The voice within him yelled. He saw the old man in front of him and doubted that this person was actually hostile, much less a threat, but he was compelled to draw his gun nonetheless.  
  
Dr. J was somewhat confounded when the boy whipped out a handgun and pointed it at his throat. The ancient scientist did not fear dying or much else at this point, but was surprised by this sudden and unprovoked act of aggression.  
  
The boy's eyes were sharper than a thousand knives, sharper than lasers, sharper than the sun's glare. They scooped out the contents of your head and left you as a drooling idiot. The gun in the boy's hand seemed like a childish threat to Dr. J after he had stared into those eyes.  
  
"My mission is not complete," Crying Boy stated coldly. "You must die."  
Dr. J thought the boy's voice sounded too mature for his age. In fact, it seemed too deep and harmonious to be contained in any person's vocal chords. Dr. J knew the voice that the boy was spouting: It was the master command. The original, the first, the command that had brought one being under the control of another since the beginning of time. The voice was laced with death, for it had given the orders that sent countless men to countless dreary ends on countless scarred battlefields.  
  
"Why should you kill me, boy?" Dr. J asked. "I am no threat to you. You must see that." Meanwhile, Dr. J's thoughts were fuming with rage. How could those Alliance bastards do something like this? They butchered my work and used it to alter an innocent child!  
  
Crying Boy saw the logic in the stranger's words and hoped the voices in his head would agree. They did, and Crying Boy was allowed to put away his weapon.  
  
"...Mission Accepted. I will see to it that your lifespan is extended until I no longer have a need for you."  
  
Dr. J relaxed and breathed a quiet sigh of relief. This seemed strange to him though, as he had longed for death many times over the past few years.  
  
"I'm glad you came to your senses, young one. By what name might I call you?" Dr. J tried to be friendly, and found he was quite out of practice with human pleasantries.  
  
The question of a name brought up an interesting debate in the boy's mind. He despised the name Crying Boy; it sounded fragile and weak. But if not that, what then? He was trying to think of some unusual and powerful name that would suit him when he felt a stinging sensation in his clenched fist.  
  
He opened his hand and saw a large burn from where he had touched the red electronic eye in the laboratory. The burn spelled out a company and its logo, "Hero Youth Synthetics-Better Than Human." The boy had learned to read at some early stage in his life, but additional instruction into literacy had not yet been placed in his brain when he escaped the incubation tank. Bringing back the skill was not easy; his early life was a dim shadow.  
  
"H...He...Hee..." he began, trying to sound out the charred letters. "Hee...row," he finished at last. Then, he began the second word. "Y...Yu...Yuuu..."  
  
The scientist's mechanical eyes widened with his surprise and he interrupted the boy quite suddenly and emphatically.  
  
"Did you say Heero Yuy? Are you telling me that you are of some relation to the savior of the colonies?"  
  
"I...Don't...Know," the boy responded hesitantly. Even so, this Heero Yuy seemed like the kind of person he would be related to. He decided to take the name as his own.  
"I have a vague recollection of my past," the boy began, "but I shall take the name Heero Yuy from now on."  
  
"Splendid." The scientist replied. "You may call me Dr. J. It is an honor to meet you Heero Yuy."  
  
*****  
  
Dr. J showed Heero the underground storage unit he had created to hide his Gundam. He triggered it by the same remote that he used to control the suit, and the storage site appeared in the middle of the field in an eruption of turf and dust. It was nearly twice the size of the giant hangar that Heero was in prior to his escape from the lab. He was noticeably impressed by the old man's resourcefulness.  
  
"Why did you build a mobile suit, Dr. J?" The scientists wrinkled features curled into the first warm smile he had made in years.  
  
"When I was younger, I had some ridiculous ideas in my head about honor, justice, and other varieties of bullshit. This Gundam was going to help me achieve my goals and free the colonies. But I am too old for any such flights of fancy now," he said, whispering the last part with a bit of regret."  
  
Heero was quite swept up in Dr. J's well-remembered past when a searing pain in his legs and arms reminded him of his wounds.  
  
"How far is your house from here?" Heero asked, beginning to grow weary from his injuries.  
  
"Not far. You can make it."  
  
The old man was right, but Heero felt like dying by the time he reached the doorstep of a humble wooden shack. Heero opened it and fell forward, greeting the friendly surface that was racing up to embrace his face.  
  
*****  
  
Heero's eyes opened slowly once more, and this time there was a face to greet him. Heero was in a surprisingly comfortably bed, he knew at least that it was preferable to an incubation tank. Dr. J had dressed his wounds and put his shoulder back in place. He had also cleaned the blood and mended the tears in Heero's clothing.   
  
"I'm sure you're hungry," Dr. J said. Heero nodded slightly and got out of his bed with some difficulty.  
  
A table was set and ready in the main room. Despite his grumbling stomach Heero's attention was grabbed not by the meal, but by the utensils at the table setting. When Dr. J had turned his back for a moment to examine a bubbling pot of stew, Heero tested the sharpness of a knife left on the table by running its serrated edge under his finger. It will be sufficient, but you must work at it, the voices inside told him. Heero nodded to himself and then plunged the knife into his wrist, carving away to get at the major veins and arteries. You must ignore the pain.  
  
When Dr. J turned his attention back to Heero, the misguided young man had already hit a pair of major arteries. Blood was flying from his wrist in a thick and constant stream.  
  
"What are you doing?" Dr. J yelled in shock. Heero stopped cutting and looked at Dr. J with his intense, cobalt-colored eyes.  
  
"My mission is incomplete. I believe it will stay that way permanently, as I have lost sight of my mission's original purpose and objectives. The voices in my head only chant for my death. It's easy this way, and you will survive. Be thankful for that."  
  
Dr. J acted quickly, rushing into his study and coming back with an object that resembled a staple gun. It had a pouch filled with liquid and a needle at the end for intravenous insertion. Dr. J shoved it in and the bag of liquid began to slowly replace blood lost in Heero's arm by the cut. He then put pressure on the wound and wrapped it in a quick bandage. After a few minutes, Dr. J put on more bandages and injected a second I.V. implant into Heero's arm.   
  
Heero made a slow recovery, refining his reading and writing skills in the meantime. He also spent many hours in bed or on the couch in Dr. J's study, reading the works of William Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott, Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert A. Heinlein, Quarantam Noventa, and even the published letters of OZ leader Trieze Kushrenada.  
  
Heero noticed that, as he had not engaged in any painful or physically strenuous activity since he tried to kill himself, the voices in his head were fading.  
  
During the month that Heero was recovering, Dr. J built him a small training area to test his reaction times, strength, and dexterity.  
  
Heero spent many hours training even before he had fully recovered. Building up his physical abilities resurrected the stringent, militaristic voices that cluttered his mind. He found that the more he trained, the more the voices in his head became clearer, louder, and harder to resist.   
  
Heero's accuracy with a gun and a longbow steadily increased. In a matter of weeks, he was able to bench-press three hundred and forty pounds. His reaction times had increased far beyond the abilities of normal humans. His brain wave patterns were five times as complex as those produced by an uninitiated human cerebrum.   
  
Heero also told Dr. J of his interest in piloting the Gundam that was hidden away in the vast crop fields. Dr. J devised a special chair in which he could experience G-forces and simulate piloting the Gundam in space, Earth's atmosphere, and even underwater.  
Of course Dr. J was grateful to at last have some company, but whenever he saw the boy, he also felt guilt and sorrow in his tainted, old heart. He was the one who created the Hero Project's genetic alteration codes in the first place. He was to blame for robbing this boy of his childhood and any hope of a normal life. He knew that he must atone for his sins, and he decided to take up one last cause. He would wipe the blasphemous Hero Projects from the face of this colony and all existence. A pure, innocent boy had been corrupted by his inventions; he would let no more suffer. It was ironic that this boy called himself Heero Yuy, sharing the name of a famous peace ambassador. Dr. J prayed that this boy would not become a martyr to a bitter, old scientist's whims, and die in sacrifice just as the real Heero Yuy had.  
  
*****  
  
Heero felt an immense weight bearing down on his chest. He tried to fight it, but that caused a horrible, burning sensation in his lungs. He pressed even harder and felt a thousand fiery stilettos piercing his ribcage. At last, he gave in, and the weights on the G-force chair lightened. Heero already knew how to pilot the Gundam, but it was taking time to adjust to the atmospheric pressure, especially with his residual injuries.  
  
Heero calmly walked out of the little shack and nearly bumped right into Dr. J. The old scientist had a grave look on his face. He was holding his head low like a wrinkled, old leaf that had drooped, and was barely holding on to its tree branch.  
  
"Heero Yuy, I have a favor to ask of you." He grimaced a bit then continued. "It is a rather large favor. It is a mission of great personal importance to me. Your life will almost certainly be in jeopardy throughout it."  
  
"As you may have already seen," Heero replied with a chuckle, "My life is not what you'd call a valued commodity."  
  
"It is not a commodity!" Dr. J burst out suddenly. "You are a living, breathing, free human being. You can make your own choices." Heero smiled at the old man's kindness, and for a moment, he felt they were so similar, and shared a bond stronger than he had ever thought possible with another person. Alas, it was only a brief moment. A second later, he fell to his knees and screamed. He felt like his head was going to explode.  
  
LIES! HE IS A LIAR!! KILL HIM! KILL HIM NOW!!! The voices in Heero's head were deafening explosions, sending his mind into a void, awash in pain. DRAW YOUR WEAPON!! KILL HIM!! It felt like someone was upending a bucket of rusty nails on his skull. As he groped for the gun in his back jeans pocket, he felt relief. But that is what it wants, Heero thought. Dr. J is right. I can make my own choices. No man controls me. Not even a formless one inside my head.  
  
Heero quickly stopped reaching for the gun. The painful voices became far louder than ever before. They recalled every injury he had lived through in the short time of his awakening, and injected the pain from those injuries into his body. Heero felt the soldier's bullets exploding into his shoulder and legs. He felt his jaw break in the ejected cockpit. He felt his nose breaking from when he fell on his face in the doorway of Dr. J's cottage. He felt the pain of cutting his wrists, and the emotional pain that forced him into that act. And finally, he felt a new kind of pain, the worst of them all: The pain of failure.  
  
Heero did not kill Dr. J that day, nor did he even draw his gun. This was largely because of a fact that was unforeseen by the voices in his head: His gun was not in his back pocket. It had slipped out when he was training in the G-forces chair.  
  
End of Chapter 2  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	3. The Awakening Part 3

Disclaimer: This is fandom. I'm not making money off it; I'm not infringing on copyrights. 'Nuff said.  
  
GW Fanfiction  
-The Awakening-  
  
Chapter 3-The House of His Fathers  
  
  
  
"Kill me!"  
  
A bead of sweat fell down Heero's twisted face.  
  
"I can't control it anymore. I can't live like this." Dr. J already knew that this boy had some bond with the people who created him. They were trying to bring him back.  
  
"The voices...They're too strong!" Heero screamed and began to pound his head against the grass. Dr. J could see two options to ensure his survival: He could kill this boy, but that would be an unfortunate waste and a personal failure, or he could take on the task of becoming the only authority this boy knew. He would become "the voices," and imitate their own commanding presence. The voices persuaded Heero with pain, so he would have to persuade Heero with that pain increased ten-fold. He would have to appeal to Heero's tightly programmed brain. This was a cruel fate for the boy, perhaps crueler than a quick death, but it was the fate they were both destined for, Dr. J was sure of that.  
  
*****  
  
Later that day, Heero was reading 'The Tragedy of Macbeth' on a couch in the study. He related to the man character, having a seemingly invincible existence cut down by a single flaw. Dr. J spoke to him that afternoon for the first time since Heero's breakdown.  
  
The old man hobbled into the room and stood just inside the doorway, his bent, knobby silhouette traced by a glow of yellow candlelight in the main hall.  
  
"I suppose this is about the mission you mentioned earlier," Heero said in almost whispering tones.  
  
"Yes. This will be a dangerous task, and I am sure that the voices in your head will object terribly. You must ignore them."  
  
"I can handle it."  
  
"Very well then," Dr. J said with no sign of hesitation. "I hereby charge you with returning to the Alliance labs where you were experimented on and gathering as much information as possible. You are then to terminate all life within the labs and destroy them."  
  
"I will need the Gundam," Heero said nonchalantly.  
  
"If you are able to pilot it, it is a tool that you may utilize at any time."  
  
Heero was just about to get off the couch when a hint of curiosity sprung into his mind. He blurted out the attached question without a single thought.  
  
"Dr. J, why do you care?"  
  
The scientist was struck dumb by Heero's question, but knew he had to attempt an answer. The boy deserved one, after all.  
  
"I helped..." Dr. J sighed, hesitating. "I helped the Alliance scientists with the genetic coding for your precursors. I had no idea that they would use my work to alter a child."  
  
"I am not a child," Heero said with an icy stare. No, you are ancient, Dr. J thought, even though he was unable to visualize Heero as anything but a troubled, fourteen year old boy.  
  
"I understand you, though," Heero stated. "You feel guilty because you had a role in my genetic alteration. You shouldn't. I am trying to live in the present, and have decided to...feel glad...that I'm alive at all." Heero's voice was really straining on that last sentence.  
  
"That required quite a bit of effort on your part, but you don't need to lie to me. You must be terribly angry," Dr. J said quietly, knowing he should be fearing for his life, but somehow in a perfect state of peace.  
  
"I am not angry. I am nothing."   
  
Dr. J smacked Heero's face with his metal claw-arm. Heero was surprised that it actually hurt. He looked up at the kindly old man's face, and saw that his wrinkled features had been drawn tight in anger. "You will not speak in such a manner! You are important to me and to the people that created you. And now, you have a chance for retribution against those who wronged you."  
  
"Wrath. One of the seven deadly sins." Heero enjoyed scripture. He found it hilarious.  
  
"Yes, and perhaps the deadliest one of all, for it seems so right and justified when committed. But, in this case, I believe that revenge really is justified for once. The people who made you into what you are the lowest form of life that can taint human existence. They are a blasphemous stain upon the face of god. You will erase that stain before it taints the memories of all people as well."  
  
Heero's enraged expression melted, and, to Dr. J's amazement, Heero doubled over with laughter, falling onto the cashmere rug in hysterics.  
  
"Did I say something quite that amusing?" Dr. J asked. He wasn't sure if seeing Heero laughing like this was giving him hope of emotional progress or horrifying him outright.  
Heero stood up finally, wiped a tear from his eye, and regained composure.  
  
"In the centuries that you have been alive, Dr. J," Heero began, a chuckle still caught in his throat, "You must have realized by now that there's no god. Just seeing you standing there, preaching about justice and evil forces tainting god's face like some demented, old reverend...well, it just looked ridiculous." He nearly began a reprise of his laughing fit when he saw Dr. J's face, raw with vehemence.  
  
"You don't believe in god?" Dr. J asked, containing his anger.  
  
"It's not a matter of belief," Heero answered confidently. "I know there's no god."  
  
Dr. J had just raised his metal appendage to smack Heero once more when he decided against it. He lowered his metal arm, still fuming.  
  
"You may believe what you wish, young one, but remember this lesson of mine above all your others: nothing in life is definite." That was Dr. J's second favorite phrase when it came to describing his life. "Anyway, we have strayed from the point of this discussion. I ask you now, as you are fully aware of the dangers and benefits of this mission, do you accept it?"  
  
Heero was about to give his answer when an explosive blast went off inside his head, screaming in a voice that was both shrill and deafeningly loud, NO!  
  
Heero's eyes began to water and he felt lightheaded. His brain had turned to mush. He dropped his copy of Macbeth and began to convulse.  
  
"You must be stronger than this, Heero Yuy! Do not let it control you."  
  
Heero eventually regained control of himself, still shuddering and soaked in sweat. His lips parted, and only a dry sound came out at first. After about a minute's worth of unintelligible wheezing, he began to form words. At last, he shook free the fading remnants of voices in his head and spoke.  
  
"Mission Accepted," Heero said in his usual, monotonous voice. "Perhaps now I will be able to either prove my worth or put an end to my life." And then he added, regarding the leather bound copy of Macbeth that he had dropped, "It appears that Birnam Woods hath come to my Dunsinane."  
  
*****  
  
The massive Mobile Armor known as 'Gundam' soared down through a group of white, billowy clouds. The Gundam fell and jackknifed through a strong thermal current, turning to a barrel roll with one, artful spin.  
  
A large keyboard wrapped around the inside of the Gundam's cockpit. There were large levers on each side of the pilot's chair that controlled the Gundam's movements and firing control. In the large, leather-padded, bucket seat was Heero Yuy, eyes closed with his arms crossed over his chest. He let the Gundam fall until the haze of the lowest clouds disappeared, then he grabbed the controls and thrust the Gundam up and away from the blurred river of grass and turf beneath him.  
  
The Gundam was flying in its Mobile Suit form, for it was impractical to switch to bird mode at this low altitude. As he raced forward, low over the ground, Heero was impressed by how quiet the Gundam's engines were, and how smoothly it flew through the windy air and updrafts. If the monitor in front of him were not on, he would've barely known he was moving at all.  
  
When the lab appeared on the horizon, Heero switched from the bulky levers to a maneuvering joystick. He guided it in nice and slow, setting it down in a kneeling position in a thicket of trees.  
  
*****  
  
Heero could've simply flown over the lab facility and vaporized it with a single shot from Gundam's beam gattling, but his first mission objective was to gather information. Also, he felt some unfinished portion of his simple destiny was hidden in those labs.  
  
It was only about a mile's jog to the compound. Heero reached the outer gate and was greeted by a large, threatening, electronic eye. The center of the eye was filled with hellish red fire from a laser beam. The beam was targeted onto Heero's throat. He would be given three chances to give the authorized password. Heero had only been outside the compound once during his years of genetic alteration, it was a test of his sensory perception. The scientist had probably changed the password at the gate since then, and they had most definitely changed it since his escape.   
  
Heero knew what would happen if he gave an incorrect password at the gate: A powerful taser would shoot out from the sensor eye and send a shock through his brain stem. Instant kill.  
  
"What is the password?" Heero asked the empty air, hoping the voices in his head would somehow respond.  
  
"IncorrectUnauthorizedPassword" The electronic eye barked in a dead, streamlined voice.  
  
Heero thought he had spoken in a tone that would be inaudible to the gate sensor, but apparently, it was more sensitive than he had thought.  
  
He decided to try an older password while waiting for the answer from the voices in his head.  
  
"Arrakis."  
  
"IncorrectTwoUnauthorizedPasswordResponsesTimeLimitSetTo  
ThirtySeconds"  
  
Heero cursed himself silently. He had forgotten the time limit on the third try. For once, he was eagerly awaiting the voices in his head to return. If they didn't give him the answer in the next few seconds, he would have no hope of dodging the deadly beam when it fired.  
  
After what seemed like an eternity, the voices seeped into his head again.  
  
You will be given the password only if you surrender yourself once you are inside the laboratory. Otherwise, you will die where you stand.  
  
How can you trust me to do such a thing once I am past the security points? Heero asked, unsure about the veracity of these elusive voices. If they told him the wrong password, he wouldn't even have to wait for the electronic eye to finish its countdown.  
  
"FifteenSecondsOnPasswordTimeLimit" the artificial voice warned.  
  
Heero thought he heard a faint laughter in the voices before they responded to his question. Once you are inside the lab, we will persuade you to keep your end of the bargain. And you know that we are quite persuasive. Their mocking answer rung through Heero's head. Even as Heero was growing a fiery rage inside toward those evil, shapeless fiends in his mind, he realized that they sounded much more human now. At first, they were only rigid directives, and later the powerful commands that were mixed with horrible pain. But now the voices had an almost conversational tone, albeit filled with malice and amusement at his torture.   
  
Heero surmised that someone inside the lab was projecting these voices into his skull. The intent of the voices had always been ordering him to eliminate all emotional and physical obstructions and return to the lab complex. The voices must be a part of some sort of an emergency recovery unit. Heero was now convinced that they would not let him die here if he pledged his allegiance to them.  
  
"FiveSecondsOnPasswordTimeLimit"  
  
I promise to surrender myself. I do not wish to die here. Please give me the password. Heero hoped that the voices wouldn't be able to tell that he was lying. Apparently, they could not, as they responded in a triumphant tone.  
  
The password is Octavian.  
  
"Octavian!" Heero screamed, feeling panicked and cornered for the first time in his life.  
  
"CorrectResponseWelcomeBackProfessorEmulat" Emulat, Heero thought. Why would the terminal be accepting a dead man's password? Hero still vividly remembered cornering the small, weasel-like man and breaking his neck.  
It doesn't matter now, Heero thought, ignoring such distracting questions. I have a mission to complete. He shook of the needle-like jabs of pain that struck his head with that thought. The voices would not stand in his way again, ever. He had promised himself this.  
  
*****  
  
Heero had learned much about the advantages of a stealthy entrance from Dr. J's training. He didn't kill a single guard in the entire complex, and soon reached his destination.  
  
Heero had stopped in front of a large pair of titanium blast shielded doors. Behind them was the laboratory where Heero was reborn. He could find information for Dr. J later, but now he felt compelled to face his past demons. Heero could feel a horrible itching in the back of his mind; a lapse, a displacement, a reminder of things left undone. He had no idea what this feelings meant, but he was sure the answer lay behind these doors.  
  
Heero rushed at the doors and hit them with tremendous force, using his right shoulder like a battering ram, but even with all his strength pressed against the door, it did not make one hint that it was going to budge.  
  
Heero flung his body into the door repeatedly. Alas, it still held firm. Heero punched the door with his fist and cursed it angrily. True frustration. Another unforeseen side effect of Heero's emotional awakening. He did not like this emotion, however. It was pointless and distracted him from the mission.  
  
Heero gave up, he had dislocated his shoulder again, and blood was running freely from between his knuckles.  
  
An excellent display. You have grown up, child. The voices were quite amused. They had an arrogant and patronizing quality to them. And they sounded more human than ever. Closer, as well.  
  
The monstrous doors opened on their own, and Heero was not the least bit surprised. He had expected this, somehow. Fear, another useless emotion, crept into him like a thief in the night, when he realized he was expecting something else. His life would surely end in the room before him.  
  
Heero stepped in and saw that everything was as he had left it, for the most part. The tank that he had shattered in his escape was now covered with sheet metal. The seventeen other boys in green tanks still surrounded the room. As he looked at them, disturbed by their absurdly happy grins, he noticed a person standing by the central console. The man had on a strange suit and was wearing an oversized helmet that covered his entire face.  
  
The man opened two locking mechanisms on the sides of the helmet and it split down the middle, falling away from his face. The helmet folded up neatly around his neck, forming an odd-looking sort of metal collar. That was when Heero noticed the neck brace that the man was wearing, and he did not even have to look at the man's face to know who he was.  
  
"Emulat!" Heero cried. The man's face spread into a rat-like grin. Heero's jaw nearly dropped. He had killed this man, hadn't he?  
  
"I guess you are wondering how I am still alive." The scientist gave a shrill chuckle. "I was injured to be sure, but you were too preoccupied with escape to confirm that you had killed me. You were a bit careless, Crying Boy."  
  
"Do not call me that," Heero snapped.  
  
"Oh, you'd rather prefer the name of the colonies martyred leader? Very well, Heero Yuy." Heero's eyes widened. How could this man know so much? He thought, feeling quite naked before the man's crooked stare.  
  
"I am glad to see that my child had returned to me," Emulat continued. "You finally responded to my calls. I must admit, you resisted them longer than even I thought possible." Heero couldn't believe it. This man had been the source of the vexing calls and painful jabs in his mind. This...pathetic man that would've been out of his life forever if he had just twisted that scrawny neck a few centimeters further.  
  
Heero reached for his gun to end this meaningless conversation, but instantly dropped to his knees and vomited blood. With such a short range to project the voices, Emulat didn't need to use Heero's skull cavity as an amplifier. He could now inject the pain into any part of Heero's body. Emulat aimed for the worst place possible, and forced an enormous amount of pain onto it.   
  
Heero hacked dryly and grabbed his crotch. He was feeling a horrible, new kind of pain far worse than any other he had experienced. The world swam around him in a blurry haze.  
  
Emulat finally let the pain drop away from Heero's testicles. The boy had collapsed, sprawled out on the ground in front of him. Emulat slowly drew a nearly antique revolver from under his lab coat and prepared to make the final shot. Emulat held the gun in a wavering hand; he had never fired one before. Heero was no threat, and he figured he might as well take his time aiming the weapon.  
  
As Emulat at last prepared to fire, he grinned and spoke to Heero with a slurred and clumsy tongue, unlike his usually precise, clipped voice. This was a byproduct of the severe cleft palate he had as a baby. When he became excited and wrapped up in the adrenaline rush of the moment, he often forgot to correct his speech. It was a moldy ghost of his tortured childhood, and it curled out from his heart, up his throat, and brought a chain of thorns around his mouth to remind him of his early abandonment and torture at the hands of a cruel world.  
  
"You...we'e afailu'e. I'm glad oo finiss wha I star-ed. Soon, da wolld will know nu'ing of your kind-d-d."  
  
Emulat pulled back the hammer on his gun, and a new round flipped up into the barrel, ready to fire.  
  
Heero looked up, and almost felt remorse for this man. He drove that thought from his mind faster than a bullet leaving its chamber. Heero leapt to his feet, knocked the gun from Emulat's hand with a quick swipe, and grabbed the man's neck brace, forcing the scientist to his knees as he quaked with fear.  
  
A switchblade sprung out from the right sleeve of Heero's flight jacket. He held the blade at the scientist's throat.  
  
"Tell me now, Emulat, or you will never tell anyone anything again. Why did you make me?" Emulat was silent, but still shaking uncontrollably.  
  
"Why did you make me!!?" Heero screamed, his eyes welling up with bitter tears. Still, the scientist would not answer. The truth was, he didn't know. Was Heero the product of ambition and the hope of scientific achievement, one of the necessary evils he was called upon to do by uncaring politicians, or simply the wish to create offspring, the wish to have a child of his own. Emulat knew that Heero would find satisfaction in none of these answers, but he didn't care. If he were to die in this room, right now, he would enjoy keeping one final secret from his tortured creation.  
  
Heero threw the pathetic man onto the floor and sheathed his knife. Heero drew his gun instead, he would prefer not to be stained with this vile man's blood. Emulat gave one final, pathetic cry, not to Heero, but seemingly to the room around him, or perhaps some faded, long-dead voice that only rattled on in his head.  
  
"Faa-err, Faa-err! Ow could oo leh iss appen?"   
  
"You deserve worse than this," Heero said, his soul exploding into wild flames.  
  
Heero fired, and Emulat's nose exploded into a fountaining stream of blood and gooey cartilage. Heero fired again into the man's face, causing sprays of blood and pieces of skull to fly up in Heero's face and hair. Heero fired again, fragmenting Emulat's jaw into bone splinters that tore through the chin and twisted the lips open in a curvy sneer. Heero fired again. Fired again. Fired again.  
  
A golden, spent shell casing pirouetted up through the air and glimmered in Heero's intense sapphire eye. Then it flipped up and away from his face. He had fired the last round in the magazine. Emulat's face was unrecognizable. The man's chin and lower jaw spilled out onto his chest and the top of his head had been blown to pieces. There was a huge crimson pool around Emulat, and spattered drops of blood covered Heero's face, despite his wish to the contrary. Heero found Emulat's death to be meaningless and unsatisfying. He had silenced the painful voices in his head, but he felt empty, used up, and had learned nothing.  
  
Heero brushed a tear from his eye and his face hardened, became dark and cold once more. He turned away from the mangled body and walked out of the lab with broad, fluid strides. His heart was made of stone once more; his soul was silenced.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	4. The Awakening Part 4 - Finale

Gundam W Fanfiction  
-The Awakening-  
  
Chapter 4- Mind Quake  
  
Heero's Gundam sailed up over the lab complex. He pulled back the twin levers that controlled the suits arms, and the suit's massive, oversized energy rifle rose up until it was eye-level with Heero's cockpit.  
  
This is it. With this strike, I will wipe away the past forever, Heero thought with an amount of apprehension.  
  
He knew his mission, though. He knew his purpose. In that instant, his mind was freed of all distractions. It was set ablaze with a single destructive thought. He switched to the Gundam's tactical screens and locked the transparent blue crosshairs that danced over his face onto the giant facility below. His finger grasped the overhead trigger to the beam rifle. One shot would do it.  
  
Suddenly, a second, independent mind erupted out of his cold solidarity. It whispered menacingly in his ear: I shall never leave you. My words will fill your head for the rest of your short, miserable life.  
  
"No!!" Heero screamed in frustration. "I killed you! How could you possibly still be there?" He was answered at first by only a thin cord of chuckling.  
  
You destroyed my body, not my soul. I will haunt you forever, even in death. Emulat's ghostly voice continued to dig deeply into Heero's mind.  
  
Perhaps we should review your life before I end it. As Emulat's voice faded, a thousand images flashed before Heero's mind. He saw men dressed in dark suits with protective masks, charging into a small cottage. A dark-haired woman with intense, Prussian eyes ran screaming toward a small cradle. The guards produced rifles from their suit's harnesses and fired at her. She fell a few feet from the cradle, a dozen white-hot projectiles burrowing into her back. The men snatched a screaming infant from the cradle and left.  
  
Compter and his men. Emulat stated impartially. He always was a bit excessive in his show of force. Before you tore his heart right out of his chest without warning or provocation, that is. Can you imagine it, Heero? Creating something that even men like us would be horrified of.  
  
The next images were of Heero, being reconstructed inside a glass tank. After his body was reshaped, as the scientists wanted, he was placed in a tank full of green liquid and his skull was cut open. They made many enhancements to his brain, removing some sections of tissue and adding metallic implants in others.   
  
After these images, time whirled forward to Heero's unexpected awakening and escape.  
  
Escape pod...Dr. J...Gundam...Wrists...Macbeth...G-forces chair...all returned in a flash. Then, his memories began to slowly catch up with the present, they soon intertwined and melded together until one was indistinguishable from the other, and Heero found himself in the Gundam's cockpit once more. His right hand was forced from its grasp around the rifle's trigger. His left hand, as if possessed by an unseen demon, took the right hand and deftly broke each finger, pulling it backwards until the bone snapped. His screams were long and loud.  
  
After his right hand was completely limp and useless, the left hand dropped it and grabbed the steering columns. It pushed the acceleration levers all the way forward, and the Gundam began a dead, vertical free-fall.  
  
You might as well as learn some truth before you die. You are my creation, so I will at least partake upon you my view of mankind and the philosophy behind your creation. This is all I can do for you.  
  
Emulat's voice became deeper and clearer within Heero's head.  
  
Mankind thinks it has advanced beyond other animals. It thinks that its superior reasoning abilities and complex mind make it special somehow. But in truth, we are no different from any other animal, or even forms of life that are lower than them. The only distinction that humanity has is its ability to single itself out as something better than the rest. Our only difference is our ability to have, and be aware of, our monstrous ego!  
  
Instead of an obsession with one's crude extremities, we have an obsession with our crude neural processor. Instead of solely absorbing enjoyment, passion, and beauty, we opt for self-advancement and the collective swelling of humanities' seemingly boundless pride and devotion to our own self-service. We are no more advanced, no less animalistic. We have simply conjured up a mockery of theories called 'civility.'  
  
We are still crude monkeys, and that is why I made you. The only way mankind can ever advance is if it takes away all its distractions and is boiled down to a single function, its life goal to execute that function flawlessly as many times as is possible. You see Heero? When I made you, I was making the perfect human. The next step in evolution. The single-minded killer is the foundation of every human being's psyche. Death and the ability to bring death to others is humanity's sole obsession. It has defined us for all of history.   
  
"If what you are saying is true, Emulat, then I welcome death. I will take my leave of this life and humanity in all its retched grandeur without a moment's hesitation."  
  
Excellent, Emulat replied, triumphant. The Gundam was continuing its descent, rumbling down out of the sky to its imminent destruction.  
  
"I cannot evaluate all of humanity by the narrow judgment of a man like yourself, Emulat."  
Heero suddenly reached out with his intact left hand and pulled back the throttle. The Gundam skidded over the ground, digging a huge trench through the grass and rock, then pulled up and circled around to the lab complex.  
  
"However," he continued, "I can certainly choose a fate for a group of men so cold and unfeeling as to murder an innocent woman, take her son, and turn that child into a nightmare." The Gundam drew back and leveled its rifle over the laboratory once more.  
  
Emulat's voice screamed out wildly, bringing down massive loads of pain like sledgehammers onto every part of Heero's body. But Heero saw his target. He knew his enemy. His entire life up until this point would be summarized, then unrelentingly blasted into random particulates, by this act, this supreme definition of Heero's rebirth and awakening.  
  
"That nightmare has returned to haunt you, as you promised to haunt it. I have my vengeance, I have my life, and there is nothing you can do to stop me."  
  
Heero pulled the rifle's trigger, and Emulat's voice began to waver and become distorted. There was a shrill cry as Emulat's voice accelerated into an unbearable, high-pitched whine, then the feeling of fire inside Heero's brain. There was a tremendous rush of heat, and a spray of blood and white sparks was ejected from Heero's left ear.   
  
The lab complex below had turned to smoking rubble. Heero fell back into his seat, gasping for breath. Beads of sweat fell like rain from the tips of his long, brown locks of hair. It had been the most exhausting experience of his life.  
  
As he turned the Gundam into its atmospheric flight mode, He noticed a small pool of blood on the ground next to his chair. In the middle of it were remnants of a metal implant, no bigger than the tip of his thumb. Blue skips of electricity danced around the pieces, which glistened with silver and copper. Heero couldn't believe that this tiny object had caused him so much pain. He stood up in the cockpit, walked over to the puddle in which the pieces laid, and crushed them under the heel of his shoe.  
  
"Mission Complete."  
  
*****  
  
Heero was fast asleep by the time the Gundam returned to Dr. J's humble cottage. The old scientist carried Heero in and placed him in a warm bed. Heero slept for days, and dreamt of his mother and what lay beyond the colony.  



	5. Interlude

Disclaimer: There's one of these at the top of every piece of GW fanfiction, and fans know they aren't stealing ideas from Sunrise, Sotsu, etc. So it's kinda pointless, but I bow to the power of lawsuits and copyright infringements (If they took down Napster, they can certainly take me.) Anyway, I don't own Heero, Relena, Zechs, Duo, or any of those other crazy characters. I wish I owned Wing Zero though, so I could nuke any jerks or philistines with my giant buster rifle (cue maniacal laughter). Anyway, that's unquestionably the longest disclaimer I ever wrote so I'm going to say it counts for all my other fics too. Yup, it's the mother of all disclaimers. And now that it's over, I can get on with the story (and my life).  
  
Note: This fic is a bridge between 'The Awakening,' the tale of Heero's past, and a fic about Quatre's past, entitled 'Disconnect.' The interlude itself also takes place between the Gundam Wing series and Endless Waltz.  
  
Interlude  
By Zero's Wings  
  
AC 196 - A new colony has come to the forefront of the Gundam pilots attention. Colony Lx-18999 had began covert internal operations that could have only one agenda: to illegally produce mobile suit weapons to plot an uprising against the other colonies or perhaps even Earth itself. Since Heero had come across this information, he and four of the other Gundam pilots had rented a small apartment in the center of the colony, only a few blocks away from the capital building. Only Wufei did not come, and no one, not even Sally, who always kept tabs on him, knew where he had gone. The rest of them, Duo, Trowa, and Quatre, had put their respective lives on hold to prepare for the conflict that Heero was sure would come from this colony. They were watching and waiting, like a bunch of coiled rattlesnake, docile while an intruder attempts to enter their den. After that, they would slip the intruder a lethal dose of poison, and quell the fires of an insurrection with a subtle, little bite.  
  
Heero had gathered the four of them together and told them the sordid story of his birth and rebirth at the hands of a twisted group of geneticists. He told them because, although he had already solidified his friendship with each of them, he felt that this was one more element of his life that he had not yet resolved with anyone, not even Relena.   
  
It was a dark time in his past, after his parents had died. Only Dr. J knew of this time, and he had kept a vow with Heero, even up to the time of his death, to never tell anyone. Those who knew Heero always believed that Dr. J's cruel treatment and isolation had driven Heero into such a dark, callous, and suicidal lifestyle. Heero knew that Dr. J alone could not affect his mind in such a radical way, and was always surprised by his friends willingness to except this idea. Dr. J was really taking more blame on behalf of Heero than anyone deserved. Because the old scientist, in all his cruelty and cold treatment, was simply appealing to the seed, the dark purity of a soulless killing machine that had been planted within Heero. Only Dr. J knew about that. No one else.  
  
Heero felt confident and open with his friends now. He felt like he had been reborn a third time, when he went to banish the White Fang and the cursed battleship Libra from existence. He was a whole person now, passionate, understanding, and pure in his intentions and pursuits. However, Heero felt that one more step had to be taken before he could truly rejoin the human race. He told his friends the one secret that he had always kept buried so far in his soul. The secret of his early past, and his awakening.  
  
Everyone stared at Heero in complete shock and bewilderment. Duo had dropped his cup of coffee onto the table. It had dripped down onto the floor and his new pair of leather pants. He didn't seem to notice; his hand was poised midway to his lips as if he were still holding the cup. Even Trowa, who was usually as cold and emotionally unreadable as Heero's, had a stupid look of shock plastered across his face.  
  
Heero said nothing; letting the others absorb this bomb he had just dropped on their heads.  
  
Finally, Trowa decided to break the silence, ironically enough, as he was usually the last to speak, if he even spoke at all.  
  
"Why did you tell us this, Heero?" Trowa asked, the shock still clearing from his eyes. A moment later, they had returned to their familiar state and color of corpse-like green marble.  
  
"All of you have a right to know about my past. A little while ago, I told you that my life was none of your concern. I was wrong. You are concerned about my life, and I have learned to be concerned about all of your lives as well. That is why I told you. I feel no need to keep any secrets, especially from my...my friends.  
  
"I'm glad you consider us your friends, Heero," Quatre said in one of his gestures of feeble sentimentality.  
  
Trowa nodded, understanding, then got up to make himself another pot of coffee. Quatre got a carton of chocolate milk (his favorite) out of the fridge and drained it. Duo pulled out a pack of unfiltered cigarettes, placed one in the corner of his mouth and patted his hands over his jacket pockets, searching for something to light it with. Amongst the crowd of dangling silver zippers on his leather jacket, Duo found some matches. He struck one on the seat of his pants and cooked the loose end of the cigarette offhandedly. Quatre looked shocked.  
  
"What?" Duo said in response to Quatre's expression, like a boy being chided by his harridan mother. "It eases my nerves. Besides, I doubt I'll have the luxury of waiting around 'til lung cancer kills me. It's all part of being Shinigami...the God of Death."  
  
Trowa came back in the room with a round of coffee for everyone. Quatre finished off the carton of chocolate milk and sat down again, wiping a brown milk mustache from his upper lip.  
Duo, with the cigarette still dangling on the side of his mouth, grabbed a Styrofoam cup that Trowa had just finished filling with coffee, and chugged it down in two gulps. No one said anything for quite some time.  
  
Duo was still reeling from this huge amount of information being unloaded on him all at once. He always knew Heero was far from normal, but he had never suspected something like this. It was still a little tough to swallow, Heero being born in a tank and screwed around with by a bunch of scientists. It explained a lot, of course, about his name and his ability to survive just about anything that was thrown in his way, but Duo still thought it was just too weird.  
  
Trowa had always been a simple observer above all else, and his past was occupied by varied and squalid jobs he had taken, spying on various people, as a testament to his true nature as an infiltrator and informant. He had probably seen more of the lurid and emotionally unconstrained underbelly of society than the rest of the pilots combined. As a result of this, little shocked him, and he was careful now to hide himself under a mask of flesh. However, the tale of Heero's past haunted and surprised him to the point where he lost the power of that carefully constructed mask and it fell to pieces around his shocked face. He was quick to replace the mask, but it had been a rare and terrifying loss of control for him.  
  
Quatre had so many feelings rushing in his gut and blending together that he couldn't even identify or react to a single one. He knew that he identified with Heero as he never had before, once believing that he was a test tube baby, and sympathized with Heero's feelings of worthlessness and beliefs that he was simply a pawn, an expendable tool to be utilized by uncaring masters for their own comfort. Quatre was beginning to change in a way he had not thought possible. He was beginning to sympathize with the perfect soldier.  
  
In fact, this entire story that Heero had imparted upon them seemed all too familiar to Quatre. In fact, these feelings were so strong that they rose above the boiling froth of emotions in his stomach and into his throat. Yes, he had a strong desire to share his past, or at least the portion of his past that he had never told anyone of, with his friends.  
  
"I gotta take a piss," Duo said flatly, then walked out of the room. Even better, thought Quatre. He was beginning to empathize with Heero, and of course, Trowa he loved like a brother, or perhaps even more...but he was never as comfortable around Duo. Duo was an acquaintance and perhaps even a comrade, but he was not what Quatre considered a true friend. He was truly comfortable now, among friends and ready to give Heero and Trowa an equal burden of personal knowledge to the one that Heero had just passed on.  
  
He cleared his throat and began. Heero and Trowa were quickly distracted from their own thoughts and willingly let Quatre lead them into the annals of his memory.  
  



End file.
